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LEADER ARTICLE: The Long Arm Of Pakistan

Terrorists in Afghanistan are backed by Islamabad.

Jul 2, 2008, 00:50 IST

KABUL: The latest terrorist attack on a prison in Kandahar was not the work of the Taliban alone. In fact, all significant terrorist attacks during the last several months in Afghanistan have the imprint of Al-Qaida both in the planning and execution. Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai's harsh reaction against Pakistan, by threatening to send Afghan troops into Pakistani soil to fight Al-Qaida and the Taliban in their safe houses, shows the frustration of the Afghan leadership against Pakistan's latest peace agreements with the Taliban.

The US military in Afghanistan is convinced of Pakistan's duplicity and cannot ignore the threat coming from a reinvigorated Al-Qaida in Pakistan.

The series of well-organised terrorist attacks in Afghanistan since January of this year, such as the attack on Serena Hotel, an assassination attempt against Karzai and the latest attack on a prison in Kandahar, show that either the Taliban has improved its powers to strike or Al-Qaida has regained its lost influence in Afghanistan.

The 2007 United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan report on suicide attacks in Afghanistan indicated that Taliban suicide bombers are often inept.

In many instances they have killed only themselves and not their intended targets. Also, most of them are uneducated and come from the poorest segments of the population.

It seems highly unlikely that they could have improved in the short period of less than a year.

In addition, in all of the latest terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, the Afghan police seem to have assisted the terrorists.

The infiltration of Afghan security forces is out of reach and beyond the capability of the Taliban. Only Al-Qaida has the capacity to recruit security officials and organise highly sophisticated attacks in the heart of well-protected cities such as Kabul and Kandahar.

Since political turmoil started in Pakistan at least over a year ago, all military pressure has shifted away from the tribal area in Pakistan, where Al-Qaida and the Taliban have established their safe houses and training camps.

The recent peace agreement between the newly-elected civilian government of Pakistan and the Taliban has given the latter an implicit approval to intensify their attacks inside Afghanistan.

Indeed, Al-Qaida has benefited from the chaos in Pakistan and has had ample time to regroup and step up its terrorist attacks.

The Afghanistan president is disappointed by continuous deception from the Pakistani authorities. His recent threat to send Afghan troops into Pakistani soil and fight terrorists over there is symbolic of his personal frustration.

He was under tremendous pressure during the Paris conference held on June 12 for lack of improvements in Afghanistan. Indeed, increasing insurgency activities and growing terrorist attacks have blocked the development process in the entire southern region of the country.

This time, Karzai's frustration is also shared by the United States military in Afghanistan. The latest US attack in Pakistani territory, which killed 11 Pakistani soldiers, is a warning signal to the Pakistani military.

Indeed, the US authorities have for a long time trusted Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf as a key ally in the war against Al-Qaida and the Taliban.

It took Washington a long time to eventually become disillusioned with him. However, the civilian government of Pakistan is unable to impose its will on the powerful Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) branch of the military.

Since the early 1990s, successive prime ministers of Pakistan have had no other choice but to comply with the ISI's policy in Afghanistan.

There is a consensus among western intelligence services that Al-Qaida and the Taliban leadership live in safe houses inside Pakistan.

President Bush, during his speech in New York after the September 11, 2001 attacks, promised that he would "smoke out" the terrorists from their caves.

However, nearly seven years later the Al-Qaida and Taliban leadership are still at large in Pakistan. Lately, the current US administration has come under heavy criticism for going overboard to appease Pakistan. In an election year it is critical for the outgoing administration to show some success in the war against terror, and the best achievement would be to capture or kill a top leader of Al-Qaida or the Taliban.

Pakistani authorities take seriously the military threat coming from Afghanistan, even though an ill-equipped Afghan army of only 70,000 soldiers is not a match against a strong Pakistani military of 6,00,000 soldiers.

However, the Afghan army, backed by American special forces and the US air force, would be better equipped to fight Al-Qaida and the Taliban in the tribal areas bordering Pakistan than in Afghan villages and towns. Ultimately, Pakistan might face an existential challenge if the US is forced to intervene in Pakistani territory in the name of the "war on terror".

(The writer was a special assistant to Afghanistan's former defence minister Ahmad Shah Massoud.)

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